


if you want, the pleasure's all mine

by watchtheleaves



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe, Autistic Shawn Hunter, Jack-Centric, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Very Anxious Jack Hunter, background shory if you want? but they're 12 so, cory and shawn are 12 and Very Wise, cory and shawn shenanigans, eric likes pasta and the ducktales movie, he's 15 and eric is 16, jack grew up in philadelphia, jack is very much in love with him, someone hug him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26627116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchtheleaves/pseuds/watchtheleaves
Summary: jack learns to be brave.
Relationships: Jack Hunter/Eric Matthews (Boy Meets World)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 231





	if you want, the pleasure's all mine

**Author's Note:**

> like all my boy meets world fics, this goes out to via! he's amazing and everything i know about jack hunter i know thanks to them. <3
> 
> uh, just to clarify because the tags were pretty messy, this is an AU where jack grew up in philadelphia with the rest of, you know, everyone else. so in this fic jack is 15 and eric is 16, and cory and shawn are 12 because i needed them to be kids. ages were pretty much always a mess in this show, so, just roll with it.
> 
> no trigger warnings, but jack does talk very lightly about 90s-typical homophobia and his fear to face his feelings. stay safe!

All things considered, Jack was doing fine.

The things in question to consider were that he was standing in front of the house he had been to a billion times, he was drilling holes into the door with his stare, and the can of _Pringles_ in his hand was ten seconds away from growing legs and running away from him. Maybe, then, Jack could ask it for a tip or two on how to move from one place to the other, because he had arrived at the Matthews residence when the sun was barely hiding, and now he was surrounded by shadows.

A twelve-year-old kept tugging at his hand, which only made things more difficult. It was already strange that Shawn waited all thirty minutes that Jack refused to step forward and was only now starting to get impatient, but the ways he found of trying to get him to move were also getting progressively more creative to the point of comicality.

From an outsider’s perspective, the pair probably looked like they had lost their minds. Jack felt a bit like that on the inside, too.

When his attempt to lift Jack’s feet off the ground individually failed, Shawn stood up, huffed, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Jack,” he complained. “We’re gonna miss the movie. What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know, Shawn, I’m just—” he tore his eyes from the door to look down at his brother. “I’m just not feeling well. Maybe we should reschedule. No, actually, I’ll go home, and you can—”

Shawn squinted at him so intensely it made Jack trail off and just look back at him, confused. He knew he was no actor, especially not around Shawn—the O Great One of mischief and deception—but his brother couldn’t possibly know what his ulterior motive was. Especially because not even Jack knew.

A couple seconds of silence went by where Shawn just looked straight into Jack’s eyes like he was staring into his soul. Jack felt exposed, and he weighed his options. He knew Shawn would not let him go home, not without interrogating him first, and what awaited behind the door was considerably less dangerous than revealing all his darkest secrets to his little brother.

Before Shawn could even open his mouth to talk, Jack acted against his will and walked the steps that separated him from the front door. He raised a shaky hand, stared at the tremulous movement, then sighed and rang the doorbell.

God threw him a bone: Amy Matthews at the door.

“Jack,” she said, smiling and immediately opening her arms to wrap around him. Over the boy’s shoulder, she saw Shawn, and then smiled even bigger. “Boys, we were getting worried! Is everything okay? Did you have any problems getting here?”

She let Jack go to hug Shawn, who received the gesture while giving his brother a look.

“Jack got a little lost,” he said pointedly. “But we’re all good now.”

Amy broke the embrace with Shawn to close the door behind the two and turn around. Shawn took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack before turning to the woman with a bright expression that, as everyone who had ever met him knew, had only one meaning.

“He’s upstairs,” Amy said sweetly. Shawn was already nodding his _thank you_ ’s and rushing up the stairs when she called out after him, “See if you two can reach the top shelf to get the guest sheets and pillows, or tell Eric to help you with that.”

“Got it,” the boy exclaimed, out of the frame.

“And yours is in the kitchen,” Amy turned to Jack, smiling and pointing at the door behind him. “Might need a hand.”

Before giving too much or any thought at all to the word _yours_ and the look on Amy’s face, Jack bowed his head— _god, he just bowed his head_ —and smiled tightly. He turned on his heels, coat still hanging awkwardly on his arm, and marched to the kitchen like he was about to get drafted into the army.

The sound reached him first, then the smell, and finally the view: Eric Matthews, sixteen years old, cooking pasta in a purple apron and humming a cheery tune.

 _Right_ , Jack thought. _Ulterior motive_.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and knocked two fingers on the nearest cabinet. When Eric looked up, his smile was so wide and so entirely _him_ it made Jack smile back like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like smiling at Eric was exactly what he was meant to do forever.

“Hey,” said Eric. “You made it. You know, you need to work on your punctuality.”

“Weren’t you two hours late for school last week?”

Eric pointed a finger at him. “A bear attacked me.”

Jack rolled his eyes and looked down when he felt his lips curve upward.

“Whatever, man. I brought chips,” he said, putting down the _Pringles_ and sliding them across the counter. “And popcorn, too. Shawn has it.”

“So, he and Cory ate it all already?”

“Yeah,” Jack laughed, then coughed and stood up straighter. “Yeah, probably.”

They fell into a partly comfortable silence as Jack shuffled his feet and looked out the window, and Eric switched from stirring the pasta to cutting tomatoes for what Jack could only assume was the sauce. His best friend even knowing how to cook spaghetti was a little mind-blowing. Moments like this were the ones that made Jack think about Eric as a box of surprises, someone to throw chaos into his dull routine.

Eric threw a noodle at him and it landed on his shoulder, sticking to his shirt. Jack startled, then glared at him.

“Dude,” he said. “I washed this yesterday.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Eric waved him off. “You can borrow one of mine. Now, will you help me with this, or are you just gonna stand there until the wallpaper starts singing?”

Now, cooking, he could handle. Cooking was just another activity with rules and instructions, even when following Eric’s rather artistic methods. Jack didn’t have to think about cooking, didn’t have to make any decisions, didn’t have to look away from anything or pretend like he knew anything he didn’t. Control. Peace of mind.

For a few minutes, at least.

He was good at it, too—at home, it started out because someone had to do it, but Jack quickly found a liking to the entire process: going to the grocery store, getting what he needed, finding a recipe, sticking to it. The smell of homemade dinner and the feeling of normalcy. Shawn coming to the table and them just babbling on about school and TV and anything at all, really. Cooking was, to Jack, one of the few aspects he liked about being a young grown-up.

Maybe he thought about the peaceful rhythm he and Eric fell into. Maybe he imagined it becoming an actual habit, something to do more often than not, something to do _together_.

He shook himself out of it as he stared at the spaghetti. He was a fifteen-year-old living in Philadelphia, not the protagonist of a story from the hidden section of the library. Jack could think about any happy ending he liked, but really, he had it all already. He had everything he could hope for and more, with a healthy brother and no adults to bother them (except for the two annual and semi-accidental Chet Hunter visits, which Jack had kept Shawn away from with relative ease) and friends and dinner and movies. He didn’t need romance, especially not with any boy.

(He had a lot of mental cue cards to stop himself from dreaming about things he shouldn’t dream of, but they were always weak-minded and amiss because Eric wasn’t just _any boy_.)

Two fingers snapped right in front of his eyes and Jack startled.

“You okay?”

Eric was untying the apron with one hand while resting his weight on the counter with the other—a ridiculous position, in Jack’s opinion—which meant the cooking part of the evening was about done. He was squinting at Jack, and for a second he wore the same expression Shawn had put on before ringing the doorbell. It made Jack feel naked and sick and weird on the inside, so he did what he did best.

He shrugged his way out of dealing with any genuine emotions.

“Yeah. Just a little under the weather.”

“Aw. Are you gonna be okay for pasta? Do you want something else? I’m sure my mom can—”

“It’s fine.” Jack shook his head, then nudged Eric. “Come on, let’s watch that movie Shawn won’t shut up about.”

Out in the living room were Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter, sitting side by side on the couch. Jack had seen them take that same position so many times it was almost part of the daily routine, and he liked that. Life hadn’t been the kindest on Shawn—Jack beat himself up over that fact day and night—but he had never truly been alone. Cory had to be the most loyal friend in the market.

Second best, maybe. Eric walked up to him after closing the kitchen door and patted him on the shoulder friendly. Jack felt his insides fire up and twist into knots, and he all but squirmed away from Eric’s touch and toward the couch.

Shawn was looking at him, of course, and studying him. He had seen him grimace at Eric’s sudden touch, which wasn’t a surprise because Shawn always saw what Jack needed him not to. And, because he knew his brother well, he knew it was foolish to hope that he’d let it go and just focus on the pasta and the movie and the candy and the night ahead.

Jack knew he was done for when Shawn leaned over and whispered something in Cory’s ear. The boy, in return, turned to him unsubtly. He now had two pairs of eyes scrutinizing him. It was as if the possibility of a tranquil night took live form and walked away from Jack.

“Hey, Jack, there’s—um, there’s something I wanna show you in the bathroom.”

“Both of us.”

“Both of us. There’s something we want to show you. In the bathroom.” Cory smiled.

The two looked at him until they wore him down, which didn’t take more than a few seconds. Jack surrendered and braced himself for the humiliation of being read like an open book by none other than his twelve-year-old brother and his twelve-year-old partner in crime.

He turned to make an excuse for Eric who, ever the oblivious one, remained on the sidelines as he was looking for the DVD in a box of boxes.

“Hey, we’ll be right back,” Jack said, wincing at the quiver in his voice.

Eric turned to him and smiled. “Sure, yeah. I’ll set everything up.”

And then two kids were dragging him upstairs and turning away from the bathroom to sit him down in, what do you know, none other than Eric Matthews’ bed. Cory and Shawn took a seat in front of him in Cory’s bed and eyed him up and down like they were Cop One and Cop Two from a bad TV movie.

Jack’s eyes found the window and he considered running for it. He would’ve, maybe, considering how many times Shawn had done it and survived—except Shawn started talking before he could make any impulsive movements.

“So,” he said, putting his hands together in thought. “This is an interception.”

“Intervention,” corrected Cory. “Shawn says you have a secret and that that’s making you upset and weird around Eric and everyone else. True or false?”

“I’m not doing this,” Jack scoffed.

“We’re asking the questions,” said Shawn.

“I wasn’t even—”

“Answer the question, Jack,” he ordered. He and Cory were actually not very tall, not very muscular, and not intimidating at all. Jack had been in a fight, once, so he could leave with ease. It wasn’t that he feared Cory and Shawn—it was that if he answered, it would become real.

But he was no liar, and he really couldn’t blame his brother for caring.

“True,” he said.

Cory and Shawn looked at each other and gave themselves a small nod. Then Shawn stood up, hands still together, and began to pace around the room.

“You mentioned feeling off and “under the weather”. True or false?”

“True.”

“Was this a headache, or a stomachache?”

“Um. Stomach?”

“So, I guess you could say that the thought of hanging out with Eric gave you a—” Shawn crossed the room in two steps and walked right into Jack’s personal space to whisper, “—butterfly-like feeling?”

All color drained from Jack’s face and he felt his soul leave his body for a split moment. Shawn was still quite literally up in his face, watching his every movement. It felt like choking.

“What? Are you crazy?” He pushed Shawn back gently to stand up. “You think I—You think I _like_ him?”

Shawn shrugged. “Sure looks like you do.”

Jack scoffed (again—not really helping his case) and eyed the window once again. Running looked like the perfect option.

“Well, I don’t. That’s a stupid idea. Why would you—You shouldn’t—Oh, god.”

He sat back down and let his head fall on his hands. Shawn frowned at his brother’s negative reaction and backed down and closer to Cory.

“You didn’t say anything to him, did you?”

The boys shook their heads, and the knot in Jack’s chest loosened if only slightly. Cory stood up and took over as Shawn sat by the bed and watched the scene unfold with regret and confusion.

“Jack, no one—how do I put this? We’re not trying to make fun of you, we just…” He looked back at Shawn and shrugged. “We just thought, if you like him, tell him. You shouldn’t feel bad.”

And there it was. The innocence that was so characteristic of any twelve-year-old, and also any Matthews. The optimism and the blind hope that if love is, then love always will be. Jack hated it. Jack hated having such a light in his life and yet never seeing things differently.

He knew Shawn had learned to see things that way, at least when he was around Cory. That’s why the intervention was even happening. It was as if he had brought it on himself by being friends with the Matthews. If he could just leave and then keep his distance forever and never go back to—

“Jack?”

Shawn’s voice sounded small. Only then Jack realized he had been pulling his hair and glaring daggers at the ground in silence for at least an entire minute. His brother sounded scared because he was, because he had only been trying to help and now Jack seemed on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

“I’m okay,” he said, looking up and meeting his brother’s eyes. He didn’t believe it. Jack sighed and opened his arms. “Come here.”

With furrowed brows and wary eyes, Shawn walked to sit next to him on the bed. Jack put an arm around him and Shawn leaned into the touch.

“You freaked out,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “Look, this is—I’m not mad, okay? I’m just not really open about all this. It’s not something I like to share with everyone.”

“Why not?” Asked Cory from the neighboring bed.

“Because,” replied Jack, shuffling through the cue cards in search of _something_. He didn’t have instructions on explaining bigotry to his little brother and his best friend. “The world just isn’t nice to boys who hold hands with boys.”

“Cory and I do it all the time and no one ever says anything,” Shawn said.

“Yeah, but it’s okay because you’re still kids. Things get tougher when you grow up. They _will_ get tougher.”

The boys sat on those words for a couple seconds of silence. The only thing to interrupt their quiet moment was Eric calling out ‘ _Hey, hurry!_ ’ from downstairs. The reminder that he was so close while Jack was pouring his heart out made his stomach turn.

Cory opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“I mean, who cares? It sucks, yeah, but—it’s worth it, isn’t it? If you can be with the one you love?”

Jack could feel his brother smile at that. What he wasn’t expecting is a smile of his own to grow, too, when he couldn’t find any words to refute Cory’s argument.

Twelve-year-olds had just explained love to him. No problem with that.

A part of him had always thought so, in all fairness. While, yes, Jack was always mostly a nice, controlled gentleman, there was a part of him that ran wild with imagination and dreamed of just saying _screw it_ to everything that held him back. He would have his big romantic scene, and then he and Eric would ride off into the sunset together. The world would be against them, maybe, but it wouldn’t matter. Nothing else really mattered when Eric took his side.

It was the other part of him that kept reminding him of what he had to lose. Eric could be straight, Eric could not be attracted to him, Eric could hate him for being attracted to him. There were many endings in which Jack could lose his friendship, his dignity, his heart. The possibility of such loss kept him from taking any step forward.

But there wasn’t anything to balance out what was powering Jack’s brain. He thought of all the times it physically hurt to be around Eric, to smile at Eric, to be with Eric but not be with Eric. He had so much to lose, but he had so much to win, too.

Maybe, during his time with the Matthews, he didn’t learn to be optimistic. Maybe he learned to be brave.

He stood up so fast Shawn startled.

“Stay here,” he said, pointing at Cory and then Shawn.

Then, he turned around and ran out and down the flight of stairs. His brain was rushing with adrenaline and momentum and whatever other feelings came with being impulsive for the very first time in his life. The freedom of taking a risk, of living. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears and throat.

Eric stood from where he was waiting by the couch with a plate of pasta in hand, but he placed it on the nearest table when he saw the look on Jack’s face.

“Is everything—”

“I love you. Don’t even finish that sentence. I love you.”

The look on Eric’s face was unreadable, and he took a small step back. For the first time in forever he was quiet when Jack needed him to speak, so he did the one thing he knew how to do when he was nervous and terrified: talk.

“Look, I—No, that’s it, actually. I love you,” he said, taking a step forward, never looking away from Eric’s eyes. “I’m in love with you, I’m pretty sure—I wouldn’t know because it hasn’t really happened before, but you know. I love you. I love the way you think pasta is a good choice for movie nights. I love the way you think the _DuckTales_ movie is a masterpiece. I love the way you _think_.

“And I—I also think you’re very good looking and your voice is extremely hot when you’re tired and your sweaters and shirts all smell really nice and your hair always looks perfect and whenever I’m not around you, I always feel like I’m missing something—like I’m missing you. So, I don’t really wanna miss you anymore. Because I love you.”

Jack never realized the Matthews had a clock on the living room wall, but he could hear it ticking and filling the otherwise deafening silence. He felt dizzy and weak, and he couldn’t make himself look away from Eric, even when he wasn’t saying anything.

When he did, Jack almost wished he had stayed quiet.

“The pasta’s ready,” he choked out, then nodded towards the kitchen.

It was like a bucket of ice-cold water, that sentence. He had braced himself for anger, for an easy let-down, for the odd chance of a good outcome. All those options felt better than the direct dismissal of what had just happened.

He swallowed his pride and the need to scream and shout as he followed Eric to the kitchen in shameful silence. That was it, then. His fate was pasta and a movie.

The words played repeatedly in his head and he tried to find the error, the mistake. If Eric didn’t like him back, why not just say so? If he hated him, why not yell or kick him out? Jack’s hands shook on his sides. He considered all that he had to lose many, many times—a friendship where they silently agreed to ignore everything that had happened was somehow a thousand times worse than never seeing Eric’s face again.

No, he could fix this. Jack could blame it on food poisoning, say it was a prank or lines from a school play. He could run and never come back. He could find a solution, somehow, somewhere, and then things would be okay.

As soon as the kitchen door closed behind him and he gathered air to start talking again, two hands grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. They made fists and pushed him against the door. But what came next wasn’t a punch—it was much, _much_ different.

And then, just like that, Eric Matthews was kissing him.

Eric was a few inches taller than him, and his hair was longer and fell on his forehead as he was leaning down. He moved one hand to the back of Jack’s neck and the other up and down his arm, softly, as Jack placed his hands on Eric’s waist and pulled him closer as if trying to eliminate any space between them, if possible.

He had kissed a girl or two at parties, so he wasn’t new to the idea. They just never kissed him like it meant something, like it was delivering a message. He had never been kissed like it mattered. So, when Eric pulled away to breathe and Jack instinctively leaned forward, chasing the ghost of his lips, no one could blame him.

They rested with their foreheads linked as they regained their breath. Eric smiled down at him and Jack looked at him through his eyelashes and felt like dreaming.

“ _Why_ would you—” he began to complain.

“They were watching,” Eric shook his head.

Jack frowned. “Who?”

At that, Eric smiled and opened the kitchen door.

“Come on out, mini spies,” he exclaimed.

Down the stairs walked Cory and Shawn, caught in the act and clearly caring more about finding out what had happened than looking innocent. Jack gaped at them, then looked at Eric. He simply shook his head and stepped back inside the kitchen to close the door.

“I just couldn’t ruin your cheesy love confession by kissing you in front of Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber.”

“Right,” Jack nodded. Red painted his cheeks and ears. “So…”

“So.” Eric smiled. “Round two?”

Jack grinned and leaned forward, standing on his toes only slightly to kiss Eric again. This time, the kiss was more like him—measured, calm. Things fell into place so well he couldn’t help but smile into it.

A knock on the door pulled them apart.

“Hey, uh.” Shawn’s voice filtered through the door. “I think it’s great that you guys are, like, boyfriend and boyfriend, but, uh—”

“We want pasta,” complained Cory.

Both Eric and Jack froze at the word _boyfriends_ and looked at the door before glancing at each other and smiling nervously.

“Later?” asked Eric.

“Later,” replied Jack.

He turned to march through the door and toward the living room, where he found a comfortable spot on the couch. A plate of pasta soon sat on his lap and Eric sat next to him, arm finding its place easily around his shoulders. Next to them, Cory and Shawn sat close to each other and whispered and giggled throughout the duration of the film. Jack looked at them from time to time and smiled to himself.

There would be plenty of time for overthinking, but for one night, life didn’t go any further than pasta and his head resting on his best friend’s shoulder. Life didn’t exist outside of the safety of being loved back by the person he had loved for so long. Life didn’t exist at all, actually, other than when he was existing with Eric, and Jack was okay with that. He could live in the cliché for a couple more moments.

**Author's Note:**

> title from clairo's "bags", but i'm pretty sure you all knew that already.
> 
> thank you for reading!! comments always make my day so please feel free to leave one!
> 
> i'm on twitter as @xesouI (capital i) where you can see me have daily breakdowns over kpop girls, non-canon tv couples and autistic bisexual coded sitcom characters.
> 
> drink water! wear a mask! vote!!


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